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#32. .. Aug 8,
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P. 18, AMERICAN
FREE PRESS * August 8, 2005...
Behind the Scenes
with Michael Collins Piper
New U.S.-India Axis Pushed
by Pro-Israel Forces
By Michael Collins Piper
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Despite
everything else you may have heard in the major media, the Israeli
lobby has been the primary force behind the Bush administration’s
much-heralded new policy of promoting better relations between the
United States and India.
The truth is that when President George W. Bush enthusiastically
welcomed India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during his
recent trip to Washington, every seasoned “insider”
in the American capital knew the real reason for the loudly-touted
new friendship between the United States and India: it came about
because the alliance had the approval of the powerful pro-Israel
lobby in Washington.
As if to underscore the point for those who may have somehow missed
what was really going on, a clique of Washington-based American
“neo-conservatives” known for their devotion to the
interests of Israel have banded together to form “the U.S.
India League,” which will promote congressional and public
support for the Bush administration’s initiative to firm up
a US-Indian strategic relationship.
Components of that strategic relationship — as outlined by
the administration and endorsed by the pro-Israel stalwarts —
include U.S. support for the expansion of India’s nuclear
development along with the expansion of U.S. economic relations
with India which, in recent years, has emerged as a major site for
the “outsourcing” of U.S. jobs, particularly in the
service industries.
The names of those associated with the US India League are a virtual
roster of some of Israel’s most vociferous boosters in Washington:
They include:
• Don Feder, the league’s “executive
director,” a syndicated columnist who is the author of the
book, A Jewish Conservative Looks at Pagan America;
• Alan Keyes, a former American deputy ambassador to the
United Nations, whose path to power came as a result of having
been the Harvard room-mate of William Kristol. Kristol is publisher
of the neo-conservative Weekly Standard
magazine and the son of ex-Trotskyite and neo-conservative “godfather,”
Irving Kristol, who — now along with his son — is
one of Israel’s leading strategists in Washington;
• Thomas Donnelly, former deputy executive director of the
Project for the New American Century, founded by the aforementioned
William Kristol, which once declared that America needed a “new
Pearl Harbor” in order to begin expanding its imperial interests
abroad;
• Kenneth R. Timmerman, a veteran political polemicist whose
works have been praised by the likes of Simon Wiesenthal, whose
eponymous “Center” based in Los Angeles, has become
a major source for pro-Israel propaganda. Timmerman is now promoting
the theory that Iran was involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
on America; and
• Clifford D. May, a former correspondent for The
New York Times and now chairman of the policy committee
of the Committee on the Present Danger, one of the foremost pro-Israel
lobby groups in Washington;
That these pro-Israel tacticians are now lobbying
for expansion of the U.S. relationship with India comes as no surprise
to those who have watched the growing alliance between Israel and
India that has been in development for just over a decade.
The historical record shows that — acting in tandem with a
nest of highly-paid lobbyists on the payrolls of the government
of India, private Indian financial interests, and well-fixed American
hustlers who want to profit from U.S. business deals in India —
the Israeli lobby played the primary role in “fixing”
the new U.S.-Indian relationship.
In fact, for some years, elements of the Israeli lobby and the increasingly
wealthy and influential Indian community in the United States have
been working closely together in Washington on matters of joint
tactical interest. While the U.S. supplies billions of taxpayer
dollars to Israel, propping up that country’s domestic industry,
Israel, in turn, has used U.S. largesse to underwrite its massive
arms industry, which counts India as one of its biggest customers.
In addition, Israeli financiers are starting to invest heavily in
India where — as previously noted and as many displaced American
workers now well know — U.S.-based service industries (such
as some of the credit card giants, among many others) are “outsourcing”
jobs at substantially reduced pay rates to Indian workers. So the
Israeli benefit is more than just in the geopolitical realm.
As part of their argument for the new U.S.-Indian strategic relationship,
the Bush administration and its allies in the neo-conservative network
in Washington are saying that the U.S.-India alliance is a “good”
thing that is needed to counter China’s growing economic,
political and military might in Asia.
This may sound like a sensible argument to some who have fears about
China’s intentions. However, when one considers the fact that
China today has such a substantial military arsenal because, for
the last 25 years, Israel’s arms industry (subsidized by U.S.
taxpayer dollars) was one of China’s leading suppliers of
conventional arms and arms technology — much of which originated
in the United States in the first place — that argument is
disingenuous, if not hypocritical, to those who look at the bigger
picture.
And it is exactly that bigger picture that Israel and its lobby
in Washington would prefer Americans ignore. The Israeli lobby wants
to build up India not so much as a counter to China but, instead,
as a counter to the Muslim-dominated republic of Pakistan, India’s
longtime enemy.
In addition, Israel knows that India, which was long allied with
the Arab world, as part of its traditional, independent-minded foreign
policy, has been a firm supporter of a Palestinian state. As such,
Israel hopes to use its new leverage with India — through
the forging of U.S. support for India’s nuclear ambitions
— to effectively dissolve previous Indian support for Palestinian
statehood.
All of these factors, however, ignore a key point: In India, there
is widespread suspicion and concern — and not just in the
substantial minority Muslim population, but also within the ruling
Hindu-dominated Congress Party of Prime Minister Singh — egarding
the developing “U.S.-Israel-India axis,” which many
Indians see as a threat to India’s sovereignty and independence.
So although the Indian leader has been the toast of the town in
Washington, things may not be so comfortable for him back home in
India.
And it is probably worth noting that there are many Indians who
believe that Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad, played
a covert role in the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi, a murder that preceded and perhaps actually made possible
the new “opening” between Israel and India.
Here in the United States, the key figure in forging the Washington
alliance of the Israeli lobby and the lobby for India, was former
Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-N.Y.) who — during his years in Congress
— was such an audacious advocate for India that he often called
himself the “congressman from Bombay.”
However, Solarz’s interest in India was primarily because,
as one of Israel’s leading legislative legmen on Capitol Hill,
he saw a tactical alliance between the Israeli lobby and the increasingly
wealthy and powerful Indian community in America as a way of advancing
Israel’s interests.
As such, it was not uncommon to also hear Solarz described as the
“congressman from Tel Aviv” and Solarz himself would
have been the last one to dispute the solid truth behind that moniker.
After leaving Congress, having been defeated for renomination, Solarz
emerged as a paid lobbyist for the government of India, becoming
its chief point man in Washington. In recent years, however, Solarz
has been eclipsed by other lobbyists for India who also got in on
the action when it became apparent that lobbying for India had the
approval of the Israeli lobby.
Other big names who’ve signed on the Indian payroll have included
former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), the GOP presidential nominee in 1996,
and three major Democratic Party luminaries, former Treasury Secretary
Lloyd Bentsen, former Texas Gov. Ann Richards and former Senate
majority leader George Mitchell (D-Maine), along with former Democratic
Party National Chairman Robert Strauss and top Washington power
broker Vernon Jordan, who is a regular attendee at the international
Bilderberg meetings.
In the meantime, India’s lobby has had the support of influential
pro-Israel lobbying units such as the Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs, and, of course, the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, a registered foreign lobby for Israel.
Ironically, although Bush has made the issue of nuclear weapons
proliferation a cornerstone of his foreign policy, having used that
as the foundation for his war against
Saddam Hussein and as the basis for his ongoing offensives against
Iran and North Korea, the president seems to be looking the other
way as far as India is concerned. While India has pledged that its
nuclear program will be strictly peaceful in nature, India has yet
to sign the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty.
All of this taken together is a tale of Washington profiteering
and Israeli lobby power flexing at its ugliest — but the bigger
problem is that all of this behind-the-scenes maneuvering impacts
directly on the American position in a world that is ever-more concerned
about the power of Israel’s lobby in influencing and often
directing U.S. foreign policy.
Photograph of India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (left)
and President George W. Bush (right).
A TOAST TO THE HOST WITH THE MOST: One of the most
dangerous flashpoints in the world today is the Indian subcontinent,
where Muslim Pakistan and mostly Hindu India are hostile
neighbors. Both are nuclear powers; India has had the bomb
since 1974. The Israeli lobby is now stirring the embers
of hatred in the subcontinent, threatening to start World
War III. Above, India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
(left) and President George W. Bush (right) toast each other
at a recent meeting in Washington. The Bush administration
has been co-opted by the neo-cons, many of whom are now
pushing Washington to officially support a U.S.-India-Israeli
axis against Muslim countries.
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( #32....
August 8, 2005.
American Free Press)
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